Shattered
by Ultrawoman
Summary: Kind of a sequel to Blood & Alcohol. Getting inside Spike’s head as he thinks about what he’s done another kind of angsty Spike piece [Set in Seeing Red, right after the nasty bathroom scene, up to the point where Spike leaves SunnyD]


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Title : Shattered

Author : Ultrawoman

Rating : PG-13

Spoilers : Major for Seeing Red, also slight for Smashed, and general season 6 S/B relationship stuff.

Summary : Kind of a sequel to Blood & Alcohol. Getting inside Spike's head as he thinks about what he's done - another kind of angsty Spike piece [Set in Seeing Red, right after the nasty bathroom scene, up to the point where Spike leaves SunnyD]

Feedback : Yes, please! {thanx to those who reviewed Blood & Alcohol}

Disclaimer : All characters belong to that wondrous man called Joss, who we all thank muchly for creating the great shows 'Buffy' and 'Angel', and the best character ever, Spike! 

Shattered

Slamming into his crypt, almost ripping the door from his hinges, Spike barely noticed the destruction he left in his wake. Nothing could be as broken as he was himself, nothing as bad as what he felt, nothing as awful as what he'd almost done.

Demons didn't feel guilt, vampires were above emotions, but hurting her, his precious Slayer, that made him feel as much guilt as it was possible to feel and then some.

Pacing up and down the length of his crypt, the dusty hole he called home, the scenes that had played out back there in her house, they haunted and tortured him. Closing his eyes didn't help, she was still there, her face contorting with pain and anguish, her screams and pleading for him to stop. He had heard her, on a real level he had, but it was like the part of him that heard wasn't in control of the part of him that was hurting her. Like there were two of him, one who wanted to hurt her and one who didn't but the latter just wasn't strong enough to stop it's ally.

Was it his demon? His demon and the human part of him? Were those the two things, the two forces that pulled at him?

'Poor Spikey, can't be a monster, can't be a man..." he remembered those words, those words from her lips and how painfully true they were. Thinking of her, all he could see now was her pain, what he'd done, or almost done...before, when he closed his eyes, he saw her smile, heard her laugh...now he saw agony and heard her scream...

Spike's eyes snapped open as he stalked over to his stash of alcohol, selecting a random bottle he sloppily poured himself a glass full and down most of it in one, it should help but it doesn't. He couldn't block out what he'd done before this way, it certainly wasn't going to work this time

There was a sound like shattering glass and it was only when he turned his head that the vampire realised the glass in his hand was now nothing but brutal shards...like his life, or unlife at least.

There was no whole, no solidity nothing, just fragments of feelings and thoughts and a dead shell that used to be him, an evil dead shell at that.

'...you're an evil soulless thing...'

God how those words totured him, more now than ever before. But the disgust he'd seen in her eyes then was nothing compared to the pain, the anger, the disappointment in him almost, when he'd...

"Knock, knock"

The vampire was only vaguely aware of his demon friend Clem standing in the doorway, one eye on his 'friend', the other watching the patterns on his hand, drawn in blood from the cuts the glass had made. Small shards like crystals glittering in red rivers that marred his flesh, blood on his hands was not a first for him, and whose blood but his own should be spilled now? He could have spilled hers tonight, he could have...he almost...

"I was just in the neighbourhood and I thought...y'know, there's a Knight Rider marathon on the TV, so, er...I got Hot Wings!" Clem continued to prattle on but Spike's mind was so far away....  
"What have I done?" he asked, audibly this time, still staring at his bleeding hand as he squeezed it shut, wincing slightly at the numb pains the remaining glass shards caused, but why shouldn't he feel the pain?  
"Why didn't I do it?" he asked next, somewhat angrily, closing his eyes as he seethed "What has she done to me?"  
"She-done who?" the loose skinned demon in the door way shook his head not understanding as Spike turned his back, ashamed and confused and feeling as if everything were slipping away, out of his grasp, out of his control...  
"Oh. The Slayer, huh? Gosh, she break up with you again?"

Spike smiled grimly at his the almost child like innocence of his friend. A fellow demon, but without an evil bone in his body, Clem came so much closer to being a man that Spike could ever be, and yet he looked the least likely candidate from the outside.  
"We were never together. Not really" the vampire mumbled, knowing it were more true than anyone could imagine, even when he and his precious girl were together, physically together, her emotions were never there, her feelings were never for him, never... "She wouldn't lower herself that far" he grimaced.  
"She's a sweet girl, Spike, but hey, issues...And no wonder, with the coming back from the grave and whatnot. I had this cousin....." Clem continued to ramble on and on and Spike barely heard him as he paced the crypt floor, up and down, trying to think, trying to understand but he couldn't make any sense of it. He'd been out of control, that hardly ever happened to him. In fights he might look wild but he always knew he had control over himself, but with Buffy...he never knew what she was going to do, never knew what he himself would do and tonight it had been his downfall. She'd used him, it was true , they'd treated each other appallingly but this, he never knew he could sink this low...

"Why do I feel this way?" he moaned, more to himself than anyone else, but Clem took it for grated he was being spoken to.  
"Love's a funny thing" he said as wisely as he could, finding clichés were all the advice he had to give.  
"Is that what this is?" Spike asked him directly this time, desperation in his voice, in his eyes, wanting to be told what to do, how to make it right, he had to make it right...  
"Well, I don't know" his friend admitted.

"I can feel it" Spike screwed up his face in disgust, the demons words seemingly ignored as he brought his hands to his head "Squirming inside my head..." he complained.  
"Love?" Clem guessed, a lopsided and confused expression on his floppy features.  
"The chip" Spike announced, not entirely convinced that it was the cause, but needing to blame something, something other than himself, whoever and whatever he was anymore... "Little Jiminy Cricket, gnawing bits and chunks" he seethed, probing at his skull as if he planned on digging the offending object clean out of his head.

"Everything used to be so clear" he yelled once again, storming up and down the crypt, waving arms and gesturing wildly, hoping if he talked loud enough, moved fast enough maybe he could block it out, make the images cease, her screaming stop

"Slayer. Vampire. Vampire kills Slayer, sucks her dry, picks his teeth with her bones" he rambled "That's how it's always been. I've tasted the life of two Slayers. But with Buffy..." her name felt wrong in his mouth, he felt unworthy to say it, unworthy to think it but why? He was a demon, wasn't he? No, they wouldn't let him be, she wouldn't, it wouldn't...  
"This isn't the way it's supposed to be - it's the chip" he continued, raving like a madman "Steel and wires and silicon" he grabbed his head once again, shaking it wildly as if he might dislodge the item he spoke of "It won't let me be a monster...and I can't be a man" he echoed words she'd said before "I'm nothing" he conceded, knowing finally that she had been right all along. He was an evil soulless thing, he was unworthy of her...but he could change, right? Can a man change? It didn't matter, he wasn't a man...Angel had changed, surely he could too...somehow he had too...  
"Hey, come on now, Mr. Negative" Clem tried to be of some comfort as Spike stared blankly at the ground "You never know what's just around the corner. Things change"

Two words and he knew. Spike knew what he had to do.  
'Things change'

"They do" he said almost inaudibly "If you make them" and bloody hell, how he was going to make them change. He packed a bag, the bare essentials, a couple of pieces of clothing, fags and lighter, his last pack of blood from the fridge, the lasts of the vodka, shoved it all in a duffel bag and left, barely saying a word to Clem. Stopping just long enough to give him the right to use his crypt.

Pounding through the graveyard, boots thudding on the earth, cold breeze blowing by, as he lit a cigarette, Spike barely noticed, he was cold anyway. Outside, inside, nothing but cold and dark and black...but he'd change that, find the spark he needed, get what his Slayer deserved, he had too.

"Get nice and comfy Slayer" he said as he mounted his motorcycle, "I'll be back" he promised the empty space before him, "and when I am, things are gonna change around here" 

It was no lie, in fact no truth had ever been so true that had spilled from Spike's lips. He'd not hurt his precious girl again, he'd see to that. He had a plan, he had a journey to make, a physical one, an emotional one, and he'd make it. She was the light at the end of the longest metaphorical tunnel he'd ever been in, but he'd make it through, find her again, once he'd found himself...he'd piece what was left back together, make something of himself, someone she could love, out of the shattered remains of what he was now.

--THE END--


End file.
